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Guitar Praise: Solid Rock

: Cacophony :: Catholicism :: Controller Freak :

I’m just going to let this one speak for itself:

Guitar Praise: Solid Rock

Posted by c2 at 08:30 AM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (0) • Trackbacks (0)

Long liive the Qwiin

: Controller Freak :

Yes, we’re addicted to our Wii. Guess who else is?

The gadget-loving Queen has become HOOKED on Prince William’s new Nintendo Wii games console.

...A Palace source told The People: “When she saw William playing a game after lunch at Sandringham she thought the Nintendo looked tremendous fun and begged to join in.

“She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural.

..."And although she is 81 the Queen’s hand-eye co-ordination was as good as somebody half her age.”

Over at You Don’t Know Jack, they’ve set up a Dis or Dat quiz about it. It asks you to choose whether the names it flashes are from the royal family or the Mushroom Kingdom (ala the Mario games). I am ashamed to admit I only got four out of seven. 

I’ve long lauded Nintendo’s genius in making videogames accessible to a “non-traditional” market—i.e., anybody not a 18- to 34-year-old male. This is why the Wii and the handheld DS are blowing Sony’s PS3 and PSP and even Microsoft’s Xbox 360 out of the water. By prioritizing interface over processor and graphical power, Nintendo has single-handedly changed the future of gaming in the same way the Apple revolutionized the computer, music, and phone industries.

Posted by c2 at 06:39 AM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (0) • Trackbacks (0)

I love you, my Question Four

: Controller Freak :

A Happy New Year boon: You Don’t Know Jack is back, and the front page features a daily DisOrDat in all its glorious Franklin Gothic. YDKJ mainstay Cookie Masterson (Tom Gottlieb) hosts, and he places the trivia in the context of current events. My personal favorites thus far are I Can Count to at Least Two, I Got to Second Base with XP!, and Dolls Can See Your Dark, Dark Soul (in which your choices are between “a Disney heroine” or “an adulterous character from literature").

Jellyvision’s also taken their archives and reconfriguralibrationated the whole series to work with Windows XP (boo!) but nothing else (double boo!). Complaining about it only rewards you with a snarky auto-response. Yes, I tried lobbying for the old hybrid Windows/Mac CD-ROMs, and I failed. I hang my head in shame.

And by the way, let’s just forget the whole Paul Reubens travesty ever happened.

Posted by c2 at 09:49 PM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (2) • Trackbacks (0)

iillness, liisteniing liists, and iithrii

: Cacophony :: Controller Freak :: Criticism :

I had maybe a half-dozen blog entries on deck, but my iBook’s hard drive has bad blocks. And I have a virus.

I guess it’s a good thing it’s not the other way around.

The currently spinning feature has returned in the left sidebar, powered by last.fm. I started using last.fm sometime last year, and was about to plug it here then. Unfortunately, it became mind-numbingly slow after a site and system redesign. It’s still very slow (in most browsers, the sidebar takes a while to load), but at least the feature set has improved.

Brian asked me in the previous entry to comment on E3. It’s Sony’s game to lose, and with the entry-level PS3 priced at an outrageous $500, I think it will. It’s a shame, too, because in the HD media format wars, I’ve been secretly cheering on Sony’s technologically superior Blu-Ray over Toshiba’s HD-DVD. While the pricing of the PS3 won’t turn Blu-Ray into the next Betamax yet (HD-DVD players are still similarly priced), it’s not going to help.

On the whole, I’m completely unimpressed by Microsoft’s and Sony’s offerings. And maybe it’s because I’m a Nintendo loyalist, but I’m really excited about what the Wii has on the table. Nintendo is going after the non-gamers with its stripped down, user-friendly, and revolutionary controller, and it’s going to do so at half the price point of the PS3. The Wii’s graphics are barely a notch above those of the Gamecube’s, but I think Nintendo is doing something daring by concentrating more on the human interface instead of pushing polygons. The graphical leap between the next and last generations is probably the most negligible in the history of console gaming; Nintendo realized this going in, and I think it’s making the right business move by widening its market.

Now if it would just do something about that awful name.

Posted by c2 at 01:07 PM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (5) • Trackbacks (0)

OMG Cup 2005

: Controller Freak :: Criticism :

Since 2001, iDevGames, a Mac game developer community, has sponsored the uDevGames contest. It’s for homebrewed Mac-exclusive games, and each developer has a limited time frame of about six weeks to code a game from scratch. Some real gems have come out of the competition in the past couple years, including Justin Ficarrotta’s Kill Dr. Coté, which evolved into this year’s shareware classic, Kill Monty.

This year, uDevGames has a new moniker: the OMG (Original Mac Games) Cup. The developers’ deadline for submissions was last week, and voting began December 1.

I just got through all 36 entries, and here are a few standouts:

• Antimatter and Tracktor Beam — These two are similar in concept, but it’s neat to see how two different developers took it in two different directions. Both are equally addicting.
• AstroChimp! — A delightful 3D platformer with lots of attitude.
• Escort Wing — You pilot an escort fighter jet in this 2D shooter. There are only two levels (and one of them’s the tutorial), but it’s a slick start.
• Illuminations — Asteroids-like gameplay and some stunning graphics.
• Outnumbered — A nicely polished 3D flying shooter.
• Pawns — My personal favorite in this bunch. Cross Lemmings with Chess, and you’ve got this puzzler.
• Retrovirus — A neat little twist on the Bust-a-Move formula. Very well done.
• Space Wizard — Difficult but well-executed platformer.

The public voting closes on December 15. Support Mac game development and check these titles out!

Posted by c2 at 07:00 AM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (3) • Trackbacks (0)

Orisinal: High Delivery

: Controller Freak :: Criticism :

I hadn’t been to Ferry Halim’s Orisinal in a while, and I decided to play around with some of the new games. His newest, High Delivery, is one of the most poetic he’s done yet. A balloon carrying a vase floats perpetually upwards; with your mouse, you control a pinwheel which can blow it around, collecting as many roses as you can to form a huge bouquet.

Steven Cravis (who also did the music for Ferry’s wildly popular Bubble Bees), wrote a touching score for High Delivery. Its mechanics are simple and addictive, as with all of Ferry’s games. The resolution, though, is what really got me: it’s a beautifully understated message of transcendent spirituality, both romantic and sad.

Whoever says that games can’t be art needs to spend five minutes with this. Amazing.

Posted by c2 at 07:40 PM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (4) • Trackbacks (0)

Alien Hominid

: Controller Freak :: Criticism :

After three solid months of withdrawal since school began, I’ve been on a bit of a videogame binge these past few weeks. I may write later about some of the other games I’ve been playing, but first I have this little yellow bastard right here to thank for knocking me off the wagon.

Alien Hominid was first released as a Flash game two years ago on Newgrounds.com. It’s a side-scrolling shooter, with old-school game mechanics from Contra, quirky cartoon art, and a wickedly violent sense of humor. The game became so popular that its makers decided, against all odds, to bring Alien Hominid to the GameCube and PlayStation2 with new enhancements.

Posted by c2 at 05:51 PM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (2) • Trackbacks (0)

Orisinal

: Controller Freak :: Criticism :

have you been to Ferry Halim's Orisinal? you should go. it's got several beautifully-designed, addictive (and yes, cute) Flash games. Ferry's style is so fresh and imaginative, you'll spend as much time marvelling over his artistry as you will trying to break onto one of his high score boards.

my personal favorites in his collection are Rainmaker (pictured at left), Bubble Bees, Chicken Wings Are NOT for Flying!, The Three Monkeys, and a recent addition, Firedragon.

Ferry's always adding new games, so visit often.

Posted by c2 at 10:26 AM • Permalink • Print this entry • Comments (10) • Trackbacks (0)